I've been hearing a lot about women lately.

Television journalist Maria Shriver has been promoting her new study, "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," which examines the status of today's women.

And Time magazine just published a special report, "What Women Want Now" that includes an interesting poll of men and women about how they see women's place in society today .

On the surface, it's easy to guess what most women want: a few more days off, a massage and perhaps a day at the spa. But seriously, all this rhetoric has gotten me thinking about what was, what is and what is to come for American women.

Like many baby boomers, I grew up in the loving care of a stay-at-home mother who cooked everything from scratch, took charge of all of the housework, found time to attend PTA meetings and make all of my clothes by hand.

She was no June Cleaver, waltzing around in pearls and a shirt-dress like the famous television moms of that era. She was a farm wife, who in addition to all of the household duties helped milk cows twice a day and drove a tractor while we were in school.

When it came time for me to start a family, I looked to her model and decided it would be best if I, too, were a stay-at-home mom. I told my newspaper boss I'd be leaving the business when my oldest daughter was on the way. He implored me to stay, to keep my hand in the news business, even if meant toting my kids around to do it.

He got his way because as finances would have it, it was impossible for us to make ends meet without a second income. And one day, as I was bouncing my 10-month-old on my hip while cradling the phone on my shoulder and using my free hand to write notes as I interviewed a state senator, I thought about my publisher's prophetic wish.

I only worked part time when my daughters were preschoolers, but as they grew I shifted to full-time newspaper work. And it wasn't easy. They accompanied me to all kinds of news events. Sometimes, when I was working at the Hungry Horse News in the early 1990s, I'd drop the kids off at the sledding hill in Columbia Falls while I drove around looking for feature photos.

In those days I usually had to work well past midnight on Tuesdays, and my husband would care for our daughters, taking them out for pizza and on after-school fishing trips. Even so, my youngest daughter would sob at the back door as I left for the long evening, and my older daughter told me years later that she'd cover her ears during "calendar" in first grade because she didn't want to know it was Tuesday and I'd be gone. Talk about a guilt trip.

Thankfully my girls grew up to be good, productive citizens despite this perhaps self-induced trauma. I hope they'll be able to afford the option of staying home full time with their children if that's what they choose.

If not, they'll learn what I learned along the way: It's more important to read to your children than keep a tidy home; it's more important to tell them bedtime stories than reading your own books; it's more important to help them with homework than finishing the supper dishes.

With each generation of women comes more choices, more enlightenment. But the fundamentals don't seem to change. We want to be happy and fulfilled; we want our children to be happy and fulfilled, even if it takes some tough choices and a lot of multitasking to get there.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com